


Body Count

by downtheroadandupthehill, ryssabeth



Series: To Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 13:05:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtheroadandupthehill/pseuds/downtheroadandupthehill, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryssabeth/pseuds/ryssabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire wonders when he'll have to disinfect someone that he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Body Count

He hears the rumble of the truck before he sees it, and then there it is. A light blue pick-up, cresting over the horizon and down the road. Grantaire sits a little straighter in the creaky lawn chair he keeps on the roof expressly for this purpose, and squints, performing his best attempt at a head count from this distance. As the truck moves closer, Grantaire counts:

_One—_ it is Bahorel at the steering wheel, Grantaire does not need to see the finer facial details to know that.

_Two_ —Combeferre in the passenger seat, his glasses glinting in the sunlight.

And then—

_Three_. In the truck’s bed, a mop of blond hair, and Grantaire most definitely does _not_ sigh in relief at the sight of it.

As the truck continues along the cracking pavement, Grantaire sees a trio of shambling figures not far behind. They move quicker than they used to, he would be willing to swear, even if Joly tells him he’s being ridiculous. He spares a moment to roll his eyes, and hefts the rifle from its usual spot leaning up against the lawn chair. In the pocket of his shorts, the walkie crackles, and the truck has nearly reached the thick garage door.

_“Grantaire. It’s us,_ ” Enjolras’s voice comes through.

“I know it’s you, assholes. I’m not fucking blind,” Grantaire snorts into the device, thumb pressed hard against the bright red _speak_ button.

“ _Have Courfeyrac open up the door, please._ ”

“Slow it down. Give me a sec, will you?” He slips the walkie back into his shorts, raises the rifle to his shoulder and peers into the scope.

Through its magnification, he studies the creatures—nothing special, really, though one of them is missing an arm. They’re not completely rotting yet, not yet worn and torn by the effects of _being fucking corpses_ quite yet, and that’s enough to worry him, that young ones have made their way here, and where they might have come from. In the moment it matters little though, and his finger is on the trigger.

He slips out of the lawn chair, finger still balanced on the trigger, pushing it back away from the from the lip of the roof with a gentle scrape against the reinforced rubber. He stretches out, prone, balancing the rifle on the brick to compensate for the breeze, the butt of his sniper resting against his shoulder. 

He looks down the sights of his scope, centering on the peeling skin of a forehead.

And he breathes.

A shot pops off, kicking against his shoulder, and the infected at the front of the formation drops. (Grantaire thanks the jury-rigged silencer that muffles the sound—it’s not perfect, it’s not completely quiet. But it’s close enough. It won’t attract a horde.) 

He reloads, a quick flick of his wrist, shifting to the right, his elbows digging into the rubber of the roof. “Thirteen,” he murmurs under his breath. He exhales, resting his index finger on the trigger. His muscles twitch, his finger snapping off another shot, and the armless infected falls from a shot though his eye. “Fourteen.” He doesn’t need to shift, this time. The final one, shuffle-slide-groans into view (he can hear the haunting sound from here, almost like a dirge for its fallen group—but everyone know they’re long past the point of mourning). Reload, aim, pop. “Fifteen.” (This week’s count is too high for his liking.)

The last one tumbles into the dust.

All three have black-red puddles forming up behind their skulls.

Grantaire stands, rubbing the dirt off of his knees, resting the gun against his shoulder, like a regimental solider from the times before automatic rifles. He scoops up the discarded shell casings (they can be melted down for something, he’s sure) and heads toward the ladder.

“ _Good call_ ,” Enjolras’ voice comes in again, muffled by Grantaire’s pocket.

“I know,” he says, aloud, more to himself, hands too full to reach for the walkie. It’s chore enough trying to get down the ladder without dropping his gun or the shell casings. (Waste not, want not, Jehan says, because apparently platitudes come with poetry.)

Courfeyrac has let the others in when he touches down, precariously adjusting his grip on his rifle, and relief settles again over him, around his shoulders like a blanket, when everyone (Enjolras) is fine and well and unbitten. He watches Courfeyrac press a relieved kiss to Combeferre’s cheek and push his glasses up the bridge of his nose for him. Combeferre blushes but he can’t stop smiling, and Grantaire feels something like an ache in his chest as he looks to Enjolras, who is as usual all business, standing in the back of the truck throwing down bags and boxes of various goods, while Bossuet and Bahorel begin to put them away.

“Bring me back any treats?” Grantaire asks, leaning against his rifle and making no move to help. When Enjolras glares down at him, he only smiles wider.

“Found some canned stuff. Mostly beans and corn. Sack of cornmeal we might be able to do something with. Oh, and this.” Enjolras chucks a heavy bag at Grantaire. 

He doesn’t go to catch it, just lets it fall to the floor, but when he sees the picture of a grinning golden retriever on the label, his eyes light up. “Dog food!” 

“There’s still a lot of it around. You’re lucky.”

As if on cue, that’s when Lassie bounds up to Grantaire, the smell of food calling him away from mauling Bahorel. On his hind legs he can lap happily at Grantaire’s face, and that’s what he does for thirty seconds until Grantaire finally pushes him back to the floor. He’s a massive gray-and-black-splotched mutt, pink tongue hanging almost permanently out of his mouth. Joly claims he’s too unsanitary, and Bahorel threatens to cook him on a spit at least once a day, but somehow he’s found a home here, too.

“We only keep that thing around for your sake, Grantaire,” Enjolras adds, shaking his head, but Grantaire knows it’s at least half a lie. Last month, he came down from the roof one afternoon to find Enjolras fallen asleep over a book, with Lassie sprawled across his feet to keep them warm. Grantaire had sketched the sight of it, then, on the third page of one of Jehan’s books. They had been out of blank paper, and lines of typed-out verse crawled across the lines of Enjolras’s limbs and torso. If Jehan happened to come across it later, he didn’t say anything. He’s always been good like that, letting Grantaire pretend that the world isn’t what it is, if only for a stupid moment to sketch in a book.

He stands and he watches, staying out of the way and still refusing to help.

…..

Enjolras has the watch that night, and Grantaire tries to get some sleep. They have five mattresses set off in one corner, shoved together in a mismatched, haphazard puzzle. Courfeyrac curls on top of Combeferre like a cat on one end, and at the other end, Bossuet, Joly, and Musichetta are a tangle of limbs. Somehow Eponine has a thrown a leg over Bossuet, too, and Jehan has his head on her shoulder, because if there is one thing Jehan needs at night, it is to be cuddled in some fashion. Grantaire lays between them all, with Lassie on top of him for so long that his legs fall asleep. Bahorel, Feuilly and Marius have the sagging sofa, fallen asleep in front of the TV. Its screen is blue, whatever tape they had been watching—probably _The Godfather_ or maybe _Titanic—_ ended. Cosette snores softly on the floor at Marius’s feet.

It’s peaceful, for once, but Grantaire is too restless to enjoy it. He shrugs back into his shirt, doesn’t bother to redo the buttons, and maneuvers carefully among sleeping bodies and limbs. Lassie whines, but shifts to press himself against Jehan’s side, and falls quiet again. 

Grantaire takes his rifle and climbs up the ladder—he’s memorized it, after so long, and can manage its uneven steps in the dark, up to the rooftop.

Enjolras has appropriated Grantaire’s lawn chair and he doesn’t look around when he steps onto the roof and sits down at his side. He keeps his eyes on the horizon, taking this time on watch as seriously as he takes everything else. From here, they can’t hear the shuffle of rummaging undead in the streets outside their clear zone. The corpses from earlier, his little triad, are gone now, carried away (with the utmost care) and burned before the sun had set, carted in the bed of the pickup so the stench or the smoke wouldn’t attract any stragglers. Grantaire hadn’t been with him—the smell of burning skin makes him vomit, and they don’t usually have enough fresh water out on runs outside the camp to rehydrate him. 

Grantaire is going to speak first—he always does. “I see my decorations have been moved.”

“We’ll get you new ones,” Enjolras replies. 

“No rush,” he says quietly. “I’d hate to see someone get bitten on my account.” He shifts his grip on his rifle, bringing the scope up to his face. (The angle is awkward, and he’s certain that if he fired it would not only crack his collarbone, but it would also go wide—a wasted shot he’d never make.) It’s dark and it’s quiet, but that’s to be expected during the nighttime, with Enjolras. 

“You didn’t have to get out of bed,” Enjolras speaks finally, of his own account. He sounds annoyed (of course he does, he always does). “Lassie’s going to be ticked at me because you decided to move.”

“I doubt that,” Grantaire brings down his rifle, laying it next to him, instead, within reach, should he need it. “And I can come up here if I want.” He doesn’t say that if something happens to Enjolras, he’d rather be there with him. He doesn’t say, _where you go, I go_. He doesn’t say that because if he says it out loud, Enjolras will be cross. (And, frankly, Grantaire would want to punch himself in the face—because who _says_ that kind of shit with the world as it is now? Courfeyrac and Combeferre don’t count because they’re sickening.)

Grantaire doesn’t say the things on his mind and he doesn’t bite his own tongue with envy. He doesn’t picture Enjolras biting his tongue instead. 

(He doesn’t do a lot of things.)

“Any dead things of note?” Grantaire asks.

“Nothing,” Enjolras informs him. “Which is why you should probably go back to bed.”

“Don’t think so,” and he looks toward the edge of the horizon where the sun will rise in some hours’ time. “I rather like it up here.” And even without Enjolras up here to improve the view, it’s true. Middle of August, and summer nights are clear and cooler than the sweltering days. Grantaire’s shirt sticks to him in day-old sweat as a reminder. No, nighttimes are nicer.

He wants to lean his head slightly to the right, rest his cheek on Enjolras’s knee. He could, too, it’s a only a few inches to cross, and there’s always the chance that Enjolras will not flinch away.

It’s not as if they’ve never touched. Grantaire tries hard not to remember December through March, when they wore one another every night like sweaters against the cold, teeth chattering against each other’s clavicles. They never talked about it—they didn’t have to, with everyone else curled together the same way. It didn’t have to mean anything, and maybe it didn’t.

(It _did_.)

He starts to fiddle with Enjolras’s shoelaces, twirl them around his fingertips over and over again, and wonders if Enjolras is aware of his breath against his knee.

Enjolras sighs.

But he doesn’t move from the chair.


End file.
